Miner, Scrounger, Soldier, Spy
by condor1942
Summary: The story of a man. A man in the world of REDEMPTION. Cameo characters and main events owned by Bioware and/or myetel.
1. The Miner

Everything has an end, but every end has a new beginning.

_This fanfiction may coincide with some of the events of __**myetel**__'s "Spirit of _" fanfictions. It is up to the reviewers how far the story will go; it may not make it as far as those events… so review, feedback is appreciated!_

The main character is born on Joab, a human colony planet with eezo deposits.

I did do research, but correct me if I make mistakes on the history, facts, etc.

Cameo appearances by some of myetel's characters might occur in future chapters.

Universal events will also coincide with myetel's, as this is a point of view story, told from the position of a "grunt"…

**Al, Joab, Rosetta Nebula**

Al was always lonely in grade school on Joab, but he didn't mind. His mind kept him company better than all the superstitious kids around him. He had already tested out of his age groups' xenobiology courses and was three years ahead in it as a result. It was the same with electronics, applied mechanics and physics. This way, Alonzo could be well on his way to doing his dream job earlier. His dream job… Al still didn't know what he wanted to be when he grew up, and it frustrated him.

When he got frustrated, weird things happened around him; he didn't know how these things happened, and it only made him more frustrated. Once towards the end of his graduating year, in the counsellor's office of his high school, he pushed the counsellor's heavy desk about a metre across the floor without touching it. Desks sometimes lifted or rattled and shifted minutely when he was doing badly on exams. He was just different…

**Al, Helyme, Crescent Nebula, 2184**

Al got headaches sometimes, for no reason, and they usually subsided quickly after a minute or two. He had always wondered what caused them, but the medical facility in his town didn't have the equipment and he had no credits to pay with, anyway. So he continued classes ahead of his grade, and graduated from high school two years early.

Al took his first full-time job, at age 16, as a mining engineer. He was in charge of a unit of robo-miners on the surface of Helyme, mining eezo. As amazing as the oceans and mountains looked, Alonzo knew there was no way he'd set foot on that planet due to the radiation hazard. The Illium corporations which control most of the planet made sure their employees knew about the hazard before starting work, in the extensive contract each employee signed prior to starting. As such, all workers were stationed either on orbital platforms, doing remote mining, or in heavy bunkers on the surface of Helyme, doing maintenance and repairs on the mining equipment. He was unlucky and had to do bunker rotation first.

Five months into his rotation on the planet, everyone in the bunker he was staying, including him, began to get stir-crazy. The worst instances were the alcohol induced brawls that most of the crew got into a least one night a week. Alonzo was getting tired of them, but didn't want to attract any attention to himself. So he often busied himself working out, prepping for the next work shift, or watching vids, while slumped away from the raucous sounds down the hall. One night, one of the more crazy-eyed drunk men slouching down the hall saw Alonzo through the open door, sitting at his work console coding the mechs, and slurred into the room at him.

"Hey! What-cha think yur dooin' Gonzo? Geroff yur ass an' have shum fun!" The drunk worker stumbled over to Al and clapped his hand down on his shoulder. "We got shum exter booze fer yoo too!"

"Don't touch me. Go away." Al murmured, shrugging off the hand. He had a headache now, from all the work stress combined with his anger at the partiers.

"What wash tat? I DIDN'T HEAR YA!" The man yelled into his ear. The alcohol rolled off his breath and Al blanched a little. He didn't like that smell at all. It reminded him of home. A blue haze appeared around the edge of Al's vision.

"I said don't TOUCH me!" Al whirled around, a fist following his body's turn. He punched the other man square in the face, with a heavy THOOM sound accompanying the contact. The man flew across the room and into the hall, head colliding with the far wall with a crunch. Al looked down at his closed fist, then jerked his head back in shock. It was pulsing with a cloudy blue haze. "What the f-"

"What's going on here?" The crew manager poked his head around the edge of the door, and continued, "Tell me what you did to Davis!" He glanced back toward the crumpled body lying face down in the hallway, and looked back, noticing the quickly fading blue tinges around Al's eyes and hand. "You're fired."

"What?"

The boss, named Kenson, pointed at the dead man, and stated, "Don't know if you can tell, but you just killed Davis. Time for you to leave. Pack up your stuff, you're on the first shuttle out of here."

"What? But-"

"We have no room for a biotic in our company. You could find a spot in the Alliance Military probably, but you're finished here. You get two weeks termination pay as required, starting today." He looked back at Davis' body. "You're lucky you're so young and that he was a terrible worker. I'm not going to get you put in jail, but I will give the police a call. They'll probably do a psych test and get you doing charity work or something. I should also call the hospital services to come down and take a look at Davis. Maybe he isn't dead after all…"

"Wait, how could I be biotic? I thought only asari were biotic..."

"Well, where did you grow up?" Kenson asked. "If the planet had eezo on it, there's a chance your mother was exposed to it while pregnant. That's the way humans get biotic powers."

"I grew up on Joab, in a town outside the capital."

"That sounds about right. I remember from the company database that Joab has a trace of eezo on its surface, so that could be it…"


	2. The Scrounger Part 1

No one is special, no one is better. Everyone is different, but no one is special! - turian military (myetel)

_This fanfiction may coincide with some of the events of __**myetel**__'s "Spirit of _" fanfictions. It is up to the reviewers how far the story will go; it may not make it as far as those events… so review, feedback is appreciated!_

The main character is born on Joab, a human colony planet with eezo deposits.

Character has slight Hispanic accent from childhood, but speaks galactic, English, and turian low-tongue smoothly.

I did do research, but correct me if I make mistakes on the history etc.

Cameo appearances by some of myetel's characters might occur in future chapters.

**Alonzo, Joab, August 3 2184**

There was little work for Alonzo in his field, as his transgression had travelled back to Illium and its mining corporations. Regardless of his skills, nobody wanted a biotic. He returned to his home in New Jericho, Joab's capital city, and tried to find work there. His father was disappointed that he got fired from the mining job, and told him that any day they met at the apartment. On the fifth day of his stay at the apartment, he got fed up with being pestered by his father.

His father started off as always: "Why the hell would they fire you? You're the best! Did you do something illegal?"

"I told you before; it was an internal issue with the company."

"Well, you have to find some way to get yourself some money, because I'm not giving you any."

"I've had my eye on the military ever since the geth attacked the Citadel; I thought I'd go and apply there." Alonzo motioned off in the distance.

"And how do you plan on getting there? Last I remember you only had 5000 credits left from your severance."

"That's enough to get me to Omega and get me some rent… I can find some short-term work there until I have enough for passage the rest of the way. I also plan on leaving tomorrow."

"Well then." Alonzo's father looked a little happy at that. "I'll say bye now so I don't miss work tomorrow. You know, because I _have _work to go to."

"Thanks, dad," Alonzo said, then murmured, "for nothing."

He didn't even wait for the next morning. Alonzo put everything he thought he needed in his security satchel and was on the first possible shuttle for the Omega system.

**Kenn, Omega, August 5 2184**

Kenn had started his salvage shop when somebody managed to get into his apartment and steal what was left from his pilgrimage funds, along with whatever else they thought was valuable. He cursed himself for not having a better lock setup in the first place, and then had to ask Harrot for permission to start a shop to try and get off this hellhole of a station. Harrot was merciless, and made him charge extortionate prices on the goods he got, so Kenn made just enough to keep rent and food going for himself.

Kenn always came out of his shop when people came off the shuttles. He was looking for anyone who might be able to help him at his shop so he could get more product in and sell it faster. On this particular day he found what he was looking for, in a small, off the beaten path landing pad (the main ones, he found early, only contained rich people or mercs, and neither were inclined to even _look _at him). A short, young-looking human in a dirty engineer's jumpsuit – probably from his last job – was getting out of a shuttle from Joab and looking around in wonder.

Kenn motioned from the side of the docking bay to the human to come to him. "Hey, you there… human. Don't just stand there, you'll get pickpocketed. You looking for work?"

"Wow! Great, I get off the shuttle and find work? Maybe Omega's not as bad as everyone says… My name's Alonzo." He reached his hand out to greet the quarian.

"You can call me Kenn." After a hesitant look at the outstretched hand, he reached out and took it. "And Omega's not as bad as they say, it's worse. Come on. Let's go sort out your new job." And with that, Kenn had a salvage crew.

**Alonzo, Omega, August 6 2184**

Alonzo met this friendly quarian right out of the hatch of the shuttle, and was very polite to him. He had to restrain his amazement at being on a space station though, or he'd look like a tourist and get robbed right away – Kenn told him of this, as they were sneaking through the back alleys towards the shop that Kenn said he owned. Then they got to the business side of things.

"How good are you with repairs and salvage? From the look of you I'd say you're at least decent at it."

"I was in school for engineering before I went to work as a robo-miner on Helyme. I can reprogram circuits pretty easy, and I'm good at welding. I could lift heavier things that most think I can, as well." Alonzo held off on telling Kenn that he was a biotic for now.

"That's great, because I need someone to go scout in the scrapyards for old tech to salvage and repair. You'll be looking around merc hotspots, recycling plants, and the like, for anything I can sell."

"Do I get a gun to protect myself? It _is _Omega after all, the people here don't look like they'd take kindly to me poking around." He gave a wide berth to a vorcha which had just hissed at him and Kenn while they walked by, and it was gnawing on something… fleshy.

"Oh sure, I've got stuff back at my apartment. It's not the best quality, but if we get enough sales going, there might be extra after what I need to get better parts." So Kenn changed direction, now apparently going towards his home. Their path brought them near the industrial district, which they apparently needed to pass through to get to Kenn's place. There was a lot of yelling and metal-on-metal sounds coming from the warehouses they passed.

"How many of these places are salvage operations anyway? They seem to all be related to something with scrap…" Alonzo glanced into a few and saw vorcha and batarians all working hard, cutting into what looked like pieces of ships, mechs and aircars while vorcha crowded around trying to get a hold of anything themselves. "It doesn't look organized, or even legal."

"Most of these warehouses are covers for the merc groups to make extra creds on the side," Kenn commented as he stepped over the corpse of a nude asari with bullet holes in the torso. Alonzo tasted bile at the sight. _"They don't even clean the dead up? What kind of place is this?"_

"The mercs don't really like pedestrian traffic through here so we should probably hurry up. I've seen a few of the grislier krogan turning to look at us through the windows…" They both stepped up their pace at that. "Here we are, through here and we'll be on the main route to the apartment block I stay at."

He pulled a rusty door off a hole in the fencing at the edge of one warehouse, and beckoned Alonzo to head through first. The first thing Alonzo saw was the sheer multitude of bodies milling about in the 'street'. There were so many types of aliens so close together, and he stopped and stared for a couple seconds before Kenn tapped him on the arm and gestured to follow him again. They pushed through the throng of bodies, and Alonzo almost lost sight of Kenn once or twice.

Eventually, they reached a run-down looking apartment building (but which buildings here _didn't _look run-down) and Kenn pushed open the main door. "I found this place after Harrot let me start up near him. He said they'd let me stay here even though not many like having quarians around them." Kenn made a rude noise behind his helmet. "They still say _we're _bad, but the vorcha are ruthless scavengers to a degree not even one of us would dream of." Kenn headed for the stairs (elevators were too expensive for this sector).

"I noticed there was one we passed eating… something… What do they do here? They don't seem very useful as workers, and they look like they only steal from others."

"They clean up the gutters. The dead asari in the warehouses? She'll be gone in," Kenn paused and looked, "about an hour. The vorcha packs down in the waste reclamation sector take the bodies down there and eat them."

"That's horrible!"

"Would you rather the station pile up with the dead? Or that the bodies get spaced? This is the best option for Aria to have." The two were on the tenth floor and still climbing.

"Who's Aria?" Alonzo looked around at the stains on each floor and was lucky they had dried, mostly.

"She's the '_boss, CEO, queen of Omega, if you will_'. She runs the station from the Afterlife club at the center of the hub near my stall. She's an asari with a lot of power and doesn't like to be annoyed. I heard she's killed people for making a ruckus in the club…"

"Then why is your store around the corner from the place?" It seemed counter-intuitive to be this close to Aria's 'stronghold'.

"Better business here than down in the back alleys. The richies see more of the shops up front even though I have to pay Harrot _and _Aria for protection…" Kenn sighed at that, as they reached the door to his apartment.

"I know about the quarians' Pilgrimage from cultural study classes, and what it means to them. So that makes me wonder; why did you come here, to Omega, in the first place?" Alonzo had been wondering this for since he learned why Kenn was here.

Kenn, who had just unlocked the door to the room, whipped his head around with (probably) an incredulous look on his face. His eyes looked pretty wide. "They taught you that in school? Nobody really knows much about us; why would they care now?"

"I looked it up on my own actually. The whole 'go find something valuable' thing is pretty smart. Wish humans did that; it would make everybody a little more humble…"

"It would make everyone more humble. It certainly makes me, and I haven't finished mine yet. I'm stuck here wasting time while all the people I left with are probably returning with amazing things for the Fleet. Lia'Vael talked about finding a used ship on the Citadel, and I should've gone there too! Even getting looked down at all day is better than trying not to die here!" There was definitely anger in Kenn's voice now. Alonzo didn't want to make a scene, so he tried to change the subject and get them into the apartment.

"Who's Lia'Vael? It sounds like you knew each other in the Fleet. Come on, you can tell me inside." Alonzo put a hand on Kenn's shoulder and softly pushed him through the door.


	3. The Scrounger Part 2

_This chapter took a long time to write… midterms got in the way. Here you go…_

**Alonzo, Omega, January 5 2185**

Alonzo had been working for Kenn for quite a while, grabbing old tech to repair and sell at his shop. He'd found quite a few interesting parts, like a partially working aircar thruster inside an old public toilet down on B level, and a case of rifle mass accelerator units in the waste bin behind a warehouse owned by the Blue Suns mercenary group. He had to get out of the warehouse area pretty quickly when he heard angry yells from inside the warehouse and saw blurry armoured shapes heading toward the back door. This is why he had a pistol after all, but not many can stand up to a regiment of fully outfitted mercs and expect to live.

So he booked it back to the shop as fast as his legs would carry him. _These will get us a good two hundred credits per unit if they all work right, _Alonzo thought as he climbed a small covered gangplank from B level to C level, trying to avoid the gazes of the krogan and batarian guards standing along the edges of the walkway. They were always on guard for undesirables and shifty characters (As if there were any people here that _weren't _shifty) and took eye contact as a challenge.

Alonzo reached Kenn's store just as he finished a sale of circuitboards to a salarian. Kenn looked exstatic, from his lighter step and chipper voice. "I just got rid of the Serrice model M-445G military boards we had sitting in back, that salarian paid very well for them. Now we have a little extra left over. Halfsies as always, and 500 creds more toward my shuttle ticket out of here. Now, what did you find on your run, Al?" Kenn had a tendency to shorten Alonzo's name, maybe unconsciously, but Alonzo actually liked it, and was beginning to use his nickname to introduce himself.

"I grabbed a box of mass accelerator units from a Blue Suns warehouse down on B," Alonzo explained, "and they almost saw me. I don't think I've moved that fast this week." He dropped the box down on the back counter and Kenn rushed over to do diagnostics.

"Come on over here, Al. Get out your omni-tool and help me sort through these. Woah, these are high-level pulsar units! It looks like a team set, at least five working ones here. We could make some serious creds off this. It just gets better having you around, maybe…" Kenn trailed off as they were working, and Alonzo glanced up at him.

"Maybe what?"

"Nothing. Just keep going, Al. I want to have the set done and packed in the special-stock safe before the day is out."

**Talia Nadar, Omega, May 23 2185**

Talia worked as a dancer in Aria's Afterlife, up on the third floor mostly. She was very pretty but lacked a certain – something – that Aria wanted for the girls at the entrance to the club. Talia was okay with that because while the first twenty years of trying to be one of the lucky few to get down on the main floor made for good competition, it was boring and tedious now. Talia had biotic potential, more than many of her co-workers, but kept it a secret from Aria to avoid being forced into Eclipse. As such, she could also read the minds of anyone who showed an interest in her and react better. She was very good at her job.

She always saw the same faces frequenting the club, the rich merc leaders, affiliates of Aria's, soldiers who thought they had the nerve to stay all night in her club. The soldiers usually got thrown out after 'midnight' when they could barely stand, or started groping the dancers. Humans and batarians were the worst for that; the men saw the asari as the ultimate prize in bed for some reason. Maybe it was that the asari were tenfold more exotic than any human or batarian woman. Many times she had to swat away a mind thinking of doing profane things to her. It tired her out though, as Talia wasn't trained in biotics. She had learned most of her skills on her own in Omega since she got here. As such, she could get caught off her guard later in the evenings. One such evening, she saw two new faces (sort of) on her level of the club. They were two males, a human and a quarian. They looked like they were celebrating something important but also out of their element in here, being young and new to Omega. The two looked like they still had the spark, the spark of hope that people new to Omega carried with them but lost quickly as the station sucked their will to live away. Talia was so busy watching the two that she didn't see the three batarian mercs shambling up to her table.

"Hey baby, come on, let's go find a quiet spot together eh?" One of them said, shocking Talia out of her quiet thoughts.

"What? No, no I don't do that. The girls you're looking for are three levels down. You'd prefer them to me." She hated this line of thought very much.

"I think you'll do just fine," another growled at her, "For each of us. Isn't that right?" The batarians laughed raucously as one tried to reach for her uniform.

A hand flew out of nowhere and caught the batarian hand. "I think she said no, don't you, _pendejo_?" The human who she had been watching had appeared from somewhere beside the table in less than a second.

"Filthy human, how dare you touch me!" The batarian tried to rip his hand out of the – boy it looked like- but the lock he was in was too tight. "I think we should teach him a lesson boys!" Talia backed up, off the table she had been on, in case a fight broke out. She didn't think the boy had much of a chance against three batarian mercenaries

"You don't want to do that here, not while Aria's watching," the boy pointed a thumb with his free hand at the camera on the post near them, "And Aria's always watching. I heard she kills the people who piss her off." He grinned a little at that comment.

The batarian eyed the camera, then muttered, "You might be right, human. But we'll be waiting for you outside the club for your 'treatment'." The batarian and the boy locked eyes for a moment, then the boy let the wristlock go loose and backed up a step with hands raised slightly. Then the batarian turned and, motioning to his compatriots, left the club.

"Are you alright?" The boy said to Talia, then motioned to the quarian who had apparently been waiting at the bar on this level. He glanced back at the door, then hurried over.

""I'm okay. Some people just don't get it. So, why did you do that for me? Nobody has even looked at the problems of the dancers, in all my hundred years of working here." She nodded slightly to the quarian as he stood next to the boy. "Now, to thank you properly, what are your names?"

"I'm Al, this is Kenn." The two boys nodded to each other, and Alonzo continued, "We work together at Kenn's Salvage around the corner."

"Yes, I've seen that shop a few times going to my apartment. It seems like a nice little establishment; I hope you make some decent money there. By the way, my name is Talia."

"How about we sit down somewhere and chat a little, Talia," the quarian, Kenn, said, "we _are_ getting looks from the other patrons now."

So they sat down at the table Talia had been dancing on, or rather, started to sit down. As they were getting situated, a turian guard moved over to the table and told Talia, "Aria saw the whole thing; it was very _helpful_ of you to intervene on our behalf, boy. However, as you know, you don't get paid for breaks, Talia. So I suggest getting rid of these two and back to work, or entertaining them." Then the guard circled around the center back to his post.

"Well, you heard him, better get out and enjoy yourselves like you were going to. I'll meet you two later sometime for a longer talk. And by the way, there's a back exit four floors down, behind the bar." She stood back up, climbed back onto the table, and, as she started to free her mind and dance, watched the two leave the club.


	4. The Scrounger Part 3

_****It's been a while since I posted any new chapters... engineering classes tend to leave little time for much else than homework. So, after so long, here's a new instalment of the Adventures of Big Al._

**Alonzo, Omega, June 2185**

This week was about to get much more interesting, though only one person this side of the Citadel knew that. News was spreading about a turian named Archangel, whose team of do-gooders were decimating the three main merc groups regularly with shipment raids and sabotage. Al held this 'Archangel' in high regard as he was one of the _very _few willing to try and change Omega for the better. He kept his head down for the time being, knowing that change didn't come that quickly here, and still skirted around mercenary patrols when they trooped past his salvage efforts.

Al was down in a lower level rooting through an abandoned room in an old apartment on this soon-to-be eventful day. He was moving through the building, looking for open rooms and, in them, hidden panels used to hide valuables. He wasn't having any luck though, and the not-as-distant-as-he'd-like snarls of hungry vorcha were unnerving. They had been getting more hostile, and increasing in numbers daily. Al wanted to take a refurbished shotgun and personal kinetic shield with him just in case…

Al was stepping out of the door to the fifth floor room he had just finished searching; the apartment had been empty, save for a 5 cred chit and a small charm bracelet, which looked very treasured to the person who had worn it. _Hopefully, _Al thought, _that person will be _able _to return for it._ A vorcha peeked its head around the hallway corner as he turned and closed the door. He looked back at it, and then it licked its (_lips?_) and disappeared back around the corner. _Fuck._ Al started running in the opposite direction, stashing the chit and bracelet in his pocket and un-shouldering his shotgun. It was a good thing he'd scavenged that set of personal shield units earlier this month; now he'd have to use the one he brought. He moved through the halls as fast as he dared, checking around each corner as he went, and always looking back for the vorcha that saw him. He got to the second floor without incident. Then, as he neared the main door, he slowed and crouched toward the foyer banister to look…

And saw a near-_platoon _of vorcha gathered around a krogan leader. The krogan was pointing at a station map and speaking in a vicious, guttural language that his VI couldn't translate. It pinged out loud to indicate this fact, and the krogan and several vorcha stopped what they were doing to look up at the balcony walkway Al was hiding. Al quickly shut off the translator and went prone, and tried to be as quiet as possible while backing away from the edge. _Shit, how do I get out now? Back exits…the fire escape…roof? No, the fire escape would make too much noise… Back door is probably watched by more of them… roof it is._ Al crawled back through the nearest doorway, and went back to a crouch, hiding behind the doorway. He listened to determine whether the group in the lobby was moving yet but heard nothing. That was enough for him, and he snuck in a crouch toward the stairwell. The roof was 5 floors up and Al had to get as many between him and the pack downstairs before they got to doing what they had come to do, which was probably to take anything valuable from the building (unless they had heard him).

He got as far as the fifth floor before he heard doors smash open at the bottom of the stairs. These were metal grate-style steps - far below safety standards – and Al could see blurs of movement through them. The blurs stopped, and Al could hear snuffling down the stairwell. They were apparently vorcha, and they smelled him now. All stealth aside now, Al bolted up the rest of the stairs, and threw open the door to the roof. The pack was climbing the stairwell at an alarming rate, and Al ran to the edge of the apartment. He looked down, and saw another building four stories down and 20 yards away. He looked left and right, to find the empty space of the central area and a 7 story building, respectively. Then he turned and looked at the door. There were shadows on the back wall now, not very much time to figure this out. Al backed up for a running start, then sprinted for the edge by the short building.

The vorcha were scrambling out of the doorway as Al jumped, hard, off the edge of the apartment with a yell. The first one lunged from its position at the door towards him, but was feet too short to reach. Al flew through the air for roughly twelve feet, and then started to fall quickly in the station's artificial gravity. He thought, _ShitshitshitshitSHIT, _and his vision grayed out around the edges as it had a year ago in the bunker. Al could only think about how he wanted to reach the roof of the building as he began to plummet… and then he was on it, kneeling in the center of a small depression where he had _landed?_ There was no time to think about it though, as the vorcha on the roof were scampering back into the doorway they came from, and the rest of the scavenger pack from the apartment was likely to send out a few after him. So Al stood up and sprinted down the stairwell of _this _building. It was apparently a smaller, but better kept and still occupied, apartment. As Al descended, he heard screams from the rooms around him. _Fuckin' vorcha! _One of them, a fast little one, turned a corner at the other end of the hallway from him and snarled.  
>"HE'S HERE! COME HERE! OVER HERE!" it yelled back past its shoulder, and sprinted at him with claws out – there were too many of the creatures for each to have a gun. Al didn't want to reveal his abilities just yet; he kicked open one of the doors next to him and ran into the hallway of the room as it streaked down the hall. There was a large window on the other side of the main room down the hall; Al ran towards the window as the single vorcha came through the doorway. He got ready, and then jumped through the window feet first while grabbing the top of the window frame. This swung his feet out and he landed on them in the alley on the outside of the room.<br>Al stumbled a bit as his momentum took him across the alley and into a dumpster. He put his hands up to catch himself, and left a set of handprints on it. His hands were wet now, too. Looking down at them, he winced. The palms of his hands had pieces of plasteel embedded in them, and were starting to bleed freely onto the floor of the alley. _Shit, they'll be able to track me now. Have to find that med station I saw on my way down here; have to get this shit out of my hands…_ He glanced back over his shoulder and, of course, the single vorcha was still running at him and just getting to the broken window.  
>"GAH! I can smell you, human! I'll find you, even if you run away from us!"<br>Al stared at it and retorted quickly, "Why are you trying so hard to get me? Can't you find someone else to pester, like maybe, Captian Gavorn?"  
>The little vorcha flinched at the name and hissed back to him, "Gavorn is too strong, him and his army always hunt us! We can't get him, but we can get you. You easy meat! COME ON, WHERE ARE YOU?!" It screeched the last out to its lagging comrades, just as Al was back-pedalling and turning at the same time. He started to sprint as fast as he could in the opposite direction, and peeled off his shirt. The shirt was only Terra standard cotton, and tore easily, for Al to wrap strips across his hands and staunch the blood flow. His hands were throbbing now, and he looked back to check if there were any of the group following him. He couldn't see any vorcha, but he could hear angry snarling and squeals from the alley he just left. The small vorcha was probably getting beaten for letting him escape, and Al didn't envy it, even if it <em>was<em> a vorcha.  
>Al slowed his foot speed after looping around many corners, through several main thoroughfares, and a stairwell leading back to C level. Not a few citizens grumbled at him as he pushed through the throngs in the more populated parts of the level. He pushed through and between as many tight-knit groups of humans and passed by all the food stalls along his route, trying to hide the smell of his blood from the vorcha that were probably still following him. It was still only C level, after all.<p>

There were alleys upon alleys cutting between the buildings all over Omega. There were even catwalks on the stories above the main street. Al cut through yet another narrow alleyway on his route to the small med clinic that he got directions to from a turian merc guarding a warehouse door; the turian had eyed Al as he retreated down the street again with a slightly amused expression, though none could see through the polarized mask all turians wear. Always moving at least at a jog, Al still had to be careful coming around corners in case a drunken krogan or surly batarian thugs saw him.

Al finally saw the hologram marking the entrance to the med station. He sighed in relief, and slowed down a little; he had been jogging or running for at least 20 minutes with a steady ooze of blood from his glass-fragmented hand. It had stopped throbbing a couple blocks back, which probably wasn't a good thing, and Al finally stopped to remove the bandage. He looked down at his hand, lifted his other to start unwrapping his shirt fragment, then caught movement in the corner of his vision. He whirled, reaching for his shotgun, and was amazed that he still had it after all the shit he'd done today.

"Who's there?" Al called into the shadow of an alley he had just passed, as he slowly advanced towards the source of motion.

"Na-glarg-na-hnn-name? Wha…" was the only response he got in return. Then Al remembered he had a flashlight in his omnitool, and turned it on low setting.

And saw a turian-shaped blob, for lack of a better word.


End file.
